was trying to ride out the storm with his wife, their two kids, and his 96-year-old mother-in-law. >> we can't move. my son wanted to go outside, save his car, it floated away. then all of a sudden, it was like the titanic. the windows, one cracked, all of a sudden, all of the windows cracked. it was surreal. >> i went upstairs, looked out front to see how it was. straight over that way, saw an orange glow out of one of the houses. oh my god. >> reporter: the tough breezy pointers were facing something even they had never imagined seeing in a hurricane, fire. >> the embers started flying over the houses, and the way the wind was blowing, it was wailing, going over the houses. >> reporter: you were safe here? >> safe here. >> reporter: the fire was going that way. >> watching it, and the winds started shifting and we started getting hit with baseball size pieces of ember hitting the house. >> reporter: whatever sparked the blaze, in mere minutes it became a wind driven inferno. panicked, tom knew he had to get his family out. >> go out the front, grab the surfboard, got to the back of the hou